Plenary Talks

Professor Charles Spence

Crossmodal Research Group, Oxford University

TITLE:Tactile Interface Design: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

ABSTRACT: In this keynote talk, I hope to provide an overview (from a cognitive neuroscience perspective) of the opportunities and limitations associated with the future utilization of tactile displays. In particular, I will focus on the constraints on tactile interface design necessitated by the fact that humans are inherently limited capacity creatures; that is, we are able to process only a restricted amount of sensory information at any given time (see Spence & Driver, 1997). I will highlight the results of a number of recent studies that have illustrated the potential opportunities associated with the use of tactile interfaces/displays in a variety of application domains: For example, research from my laboratory has recently highlighted the potential utility of tactile cues in capturing a driverfs spatial attention (e.g., Ho, Reed, & Spence, 2006; Ho, Tan, & Spence, 2005). Tactile cues can also be used to provide directional information, as well as to present more complex information via the skin surface (see Gallace, Tan, & Spence, in press, for a review). However, psychophysical research conducted in our laboratory has also demonstrated a number of important limitations that need to be considered when one thinks about utilizing the body surface to present tactile information (e.g., Gallace, Tan, & Spence, 2006a, b). Finally, I will broaden the perspective to illustrate just how important it is to consider any crossmodal, or multisensory, constraints on attention and information-processing (e.g., see Calvert, Spence & Driver, 2004; Spence & Driver, 2004) when considering the potential opportunities and limitations associated with the use of tactile displays in the coming years.

References:

  • Calvert, G., Spence, C., & Stein, B. E. (Eds.) (2004). The handbook of multisensory processing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Gallace, A., Tan, H. Z., & Spence, C. (2006a). Numerosity judgments for tactile stimuli distributed over the body surface. Perception, 35, 247-266.
  • Gallace, A., Tan, H. Z., & Spence, C. (2006b). The failure to detect tactile change: A tactile analog of visual change blindness. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13, 300-303.
  • Gallace, A., Tan, H. Z., & Spence, C. (in press). The body surface as a communication system: The state of the art after 50 years. Presence.
  • Ho, C., Reed, N. J., & Spence, C. (2006). Assessing the effectiveness of gintuitiveh vibrotactile warning signals in preventing front-to-rear-end collisions in a driving simulator. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 38, 989-997.
  • Ho, C., Tan, H. Z., & Spence, C. (2005). Using spatial vibrotactile cues to direct visual attention in driving scenes. Transportation Research Part F, 8, 397-412.
  • Spence, C., & Driver, J. (1997). Cross-modal links in attention between audition, vision, and touch: Implications for interface design. International Journal of Cognitive Ergonomics, 1, 351-373.
  • Spence, C., & Driver, J. (Eds.) (2004). Crossmodal space and crossmodal attention. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Short Biography of Charles Spence:Professor Charles Spence is the head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory based at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University (http://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/xmodal/default.htm). He is interested in how people perceive the world around them. In particular, how our brains manage to process the information from each of our different senses (such as smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch) to form the extraordinarily rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives. His research focuses on how a better understanding of the human mind will lead to the better design of multisensory interfaces, environments, products, and foods in the future. His research calls for a radical new way of examining and understanding the senses that has major implications for the way in which we design everything from household products to mobile phones, and from the food we eat to the places in which we work and live. Charles is currently a consultant for a number of multinational companies advising on various aspects of multisensory design. He has also conducted research on human-computer interaction issues on the Crew Work Station on the European Space Shuttle, and currently works on problems associated with the design of multisensory warning signals for car drivers.

Charles has published more than 200 articles in top-flight scientific journals over the last decade. Charles has been awarded the 10th Experimental Psychology Society Prize, the British Psychology Society: Cognitive Section Award, the Paul Bertelson Award, recognizing him as the young European Cognitive Psychologist of the Year, and, most recently, the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.